Fourth Amendment Of The United States Constitution

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The recent capitualtion of the United States House of Representaives to the Bush Administrations demands for TELECOM IMMUNITY in anticipation of the United States Senate following suit shall not stand.
Congress is empowered to pass laws. If they pass a bad law it needs to be repealed. This is bad law and this site seeks to have this law repealed.
Please Read Carte blanche to illegally spy on Americans by Tom Burghardt

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I want to go through what the provisions of HR 6304 really mean, what changes they make to FISA and how this will really impact us. I did a little of this in my prior post just to illustrate a point, but here I want to go through it for its own sake, and so that people really know what their representatives have done to them. Due to the the difficulty of doing this I will be posting a few points at a time, as I uncover them. For today, from Sec 103 of HR 6304

FISA court orders must be reported to congress now (previously not included)–no complaints here.

More information is required of the Attorney Generals semiannual report to the Congressional Intelligence committees–still no complaint. Hmm, these changes seem far too responsible, what’s the catch?

The Attorney General may authorize any redactions necessary to protect national security in the reports to Congress–Oh, here’s the catch. More detailed reports are required, but feel free to censor the information as you see fit Mr Attorney General (redaction authority only applies to the new required information in the report, information previously required may not be redacted, at least there is no mention of such authority in either 50 U.S.C 1871, or in HR 6304). This means that Congress has more oversight of electronic surveillance–if the president feels like letting them have it.

So increased accountability at the pleasure of the president. In other words, no increased accountability of any real import.